Evangelism

One of these days, I'm going to fully unpack this word. I'd like to compare this concept across religions, organizations, and businesses.

But this is just a jump start post to a group conversation I had earlier this week.
Leader: What counts in sharing the gospel? Is it the EE questions [If you died tonight where would you go? And Why should God let you into heaven?] Is it pulling the trigger and confronting someone to say Yes or No to Jesus? Is it talking about God and spirituality? What counts? I need to know so I can meet my share the gospel 3 times quota and I need something to measure if other people really did it or not.
Me: (internal conversation: Why the *** does that matter?) Then I found myself getting angry to the point that I couldn't speak what I was feeling. I started to tap my foot and almost left the room.

Where did this anger come from? Why was I and still am so angry when I heard that? Why is it when Christians speak on having to share the gospel they feel tired and obligated with just the thought? Are we communicating have to or get tos? Are there times though that obedience is not enjoyable, but actually more of a have to? Or should the commands of Christ not ever be burdensome? Why are so many Christians so tired, borderline bitter, secretive and not that enjoyable to be around? Are we missing something or is that what suffering looks like and everyone just needs to sip their cup and keep going?

that hurts

I'm just going to get this one started and then come back to it later. [I should be working on my paper write now, but have too much in my head so I'm dumping some out] How much of the decisions we make or don't make as leaders of the church are made because of hurt feelings? The reports we send and don't send, the people we ask for help from and those we don't, the programs we set up or can-how much of that has to do with feelings? And what are the things our feelings are hurt over the most? It seems like it has to do with anything that we attach as ours. Women's ministry is mine. Prayer ministry is mine. Men's ministry is mine. If you say something against this ministry or worse you don't say anything about it at all-that's the same as if you were to do it to me. That hurts my feelings. Is there an extent to where we can over-identify with what we do? When do you cross the line of "taking ownership." Should our identities be based at all on our performance, ministries, occupations? It seems like the things we do, where we work, what our titles are, etc change so frequently that that would be really rocky for an identity to handle. If our identities, our cores, are so tightly inter-connected to the ministries we lead then we're going to experience a lot of unnecessary ups and downs, hurt, and frustration.

We live by encouragement. And without it we die slowly, sadly, angrily.

Life According to Luther

This life, therefore, is not righteousness
but growth in righteousness;
not health, but healing,
not being, but becoming,
not rest, but exercise.
We are not yet what we should be
but what we are all growing toward.
The process is not yet finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory
but all is being purified.
---Martin Luther

I'm coming home.

she's been to the sea and she's been more than free,
giving in to the tides' beckonings. And yet sensations flow--
the only kind of flow that comes from being fully known,
drowning all the screams of the poor yet proud drunkards
telling lies to the one who knew before I even told.

drink until wrongs seem right and pleasures laugh without authority,
speaking sweet nothings to willow trees who sacrificially give
toward your feeble efforts of saving a blanketed humanity.

i want to branch out into an almond tree
spreading seeds begging to die-
for a living comes from joyful deaths,
leaving remnants worth the traders' purchase.

markets bust with merchants bringing almonds raw from rooted trees.
Plant me near streams drawn to windy storms crying-

mercy please

mercy please

mercy, please, don't leave me.

Mercy came and mercy made even your strongest of men seem broken and tame.
what beautiful maidens dance when young men hold,
in disbelief that even the wildest of hearts
could bend into a love so divine and kind.

Pick me up into you for I fear infidelities will run their course
and I will be exposed with hidden whores locked behind rotting doors.

Back to work you lazy man, back to crunching in and punching out.
Back to weary men chasing empty criminals of their souls.
demanding you mask a faith that silences honest doubts.

I'm coming home to the almond tree sitting innocently at your door,
pleading, "let me in,
let me in,
let me grow from within all your open sores."

black coffee starts smooth

Ted knew how to load the gun and change his socks.
Coffee was a luxury that knew him not.

She took her boys to school each morning, everyday.
Lunches made with cookies at home, milk on the way.

life is good when gods bow ritually to me.
time is up, but you have more to say.

It costs to make me one with you.
I'd rather be wronged than cheated by you.

Mine grinds, yours divides.
Divides the Divine from Mine.

Throw yourself into Pike's Place,
Spending pleasures that suck your holes clean.

It's good to listen to what you haven't said.
It's good to be the god you say gives me your way.

Cursed are the blessed, blessed is the curse.
simply open up your filthy, filthy, purse.

she's waiting for you there.

Psalm 56

"it is no small thing for the God of the universe to be for you"

the wonder of strings

the wonder of strings

i wonder. my heart makes me feel toward you like I can’t have you
but you already gave me the strings to your heart and told me to lift and pull as I please-this is me pleasing to pull you back into me but all I think about are things I shouldn’t think or say or do or hope to say or see or do because I don’t feel safe in you.I wish you were more of my faceless priest that opens and closes window to confessions you thought you wanted me to share. share some not all because all is too much. all is more than I want to handle. you put a cap on things and tell me you’re through with carrying me. I’m so embarrassed at how much i confided in you. I wish i had more primer to cover my face before making the mistake of picking the off-grey shade of paint. this house is older than mosaic table tops can cover. cemented beyond vintage plates shattered on the wall of my heart in hopes of making something old new. old is old. get over the molded walls and move out of this house. it’s too old to live in anymore.

I’m sad. I’m so very sad.

this was such a good home and I loved this home even more than it could love me. There was an end to the home’s love for me, but my love did not end for you. how embarrassing it must be to be you. that’s what I knew you’d say to me in pity looking back from the lens of your new home and love that is better than me. That is sad. It gets more than fingers can roll between the edges of tattered pages that shouldn’t be pages in the book of a world long beyond its time. I tune my strings to the sound of what you used to be, I’ve tuned and re-tuned and wonder how long my fingers will hurt before calloused fingers bleed. I make it my end to callous beyond the point of blood which I knew as exposure to that of a weak faith. who can handle the insanity of blood from my fingers that write stories I swear don’t belong to me. I watch and take what’s yours to the degree that it is mine. at what point do I let this side of me free, at what point do I stuff what they don’t see far enough away before I get labeled an off-shade grey. I wish you were a sliding door that I controlled up and down, up and down, confessions in, confessions out--the faceless girl who confesses infidelities gone wrong, then gone right. am I at the point of insanity or am I simply ok with finding the end of the strings empty and no longer attached to the heart I thought I could pull and lift as I
please ?